~ Researching Russell Co, Kentucky

Monthly Archives: May 2009

Well, this teacher is looking at the end of final exam week at school and she can’t WAIT for summer and it’s opportunity for full time genealogy research!

In anticipation of this, I’ve spent some time in the evenings updating my files and notes for each family that I research. While I’m far from finished, I’ve already added information to my tree just by updating with information that I forgot that I had! I definately need to come up with a better way of keeping track of what I’ve gathered. Over and over, I’ve read about the use of research logs, but I just can’t get enthused about them, mainly because I can’t see the usefulness of having a log based on the date that I research. For me to find something in my log, I’d have to know the date that I was researching and I don’t have that good of a memory! There are gaps of months, or even years, between doing serious research on a specific line. (Last summer was all about my husband’s line, but this summer will be all about my mother’s line!)

I’ve thought of the way I’d like to design my own research log – using Excel, of course. I’d like to have an Excel page for each source that I look at. The top of the page would have the title of the source and then the correct source citation that I could copy and paste into my documentation. Where was the source located? What did I look for? What was there? What was NOT there? Did I make a paper copy or a digital copy? Where did I store my copy? Was this source identical to another source? Do I want to come back to the source or was it useless?

My biggest obstacle to this project is the sheer volume of sources that I’ve looked at. And I know that the best way to do this is just to start. Little by little, it will be completed. I’m also still very much a novice in the area of citation. The sheer size of “Evidence Explained” scares me to death!

Another obstacle is knowing my own research habits. I’m a “jumper”. I start looking for one thing, but when I find information, it usually leads to other questions, which I gallop off in search of! I cringe at the idea of taking time to write down every thought and conclusion. My time is usually limited and I don’t want to do “simple bookkeeping” when I could be researching! I’m very undisciplined this way – rather like the teenagers that I teach!

So I call on voices from the past to give myself a little kick in the backside. My high school band teacher told us, “Practice makes perfect”. I know that’s true for citations as well. My mother said, “Slow and steady wins the race”. I know that’s true for my “simple bookkeeping”. And Nike told us, “Just do it”. I need to stop waiting for the perfect time, the perfect format, or whatever, and just do it! Starting next week!

John Herscher was born in Vogelgrun, Alsace France on 24 May, 1842. John and his mother, Catherine, arrived in the US (as well as 2 of his 3 siblings) around 1852. One brother, Frederick, came 2 years later. Interestingly, John’s father and step-father were both named Andreas Herrscher (which made for interesting research puzzles!)

John was the founder of Herscher, Illinois, although his brother, Frederick had more of a leadership position within the town government. John and his wife, Caroline Wesemann, had no children. John’s sister, Mary, was my husband’s great-great-great grandmother. All three brothers served during the Civil War. The third brother, Jacob, was killed during that war.

John’s tombstone is located in the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church cemetery near Herscher, Illinois.

In honor of Memorial Day, I’d like to profile the military information that I have for my great-great-grandfather, Elias Smith. I am a complete novice when it comes to military information, so all of the military information I have on Elias comes from his pension packet and from information posted on http://www.geocities.com/~etelamaki_home/8thkent.html which states that the information for this company was supplied by Judy Shamp. A transcription of the Adjutant General’s Report was supplied by Larry R. Henson. (Thank you Judy and Larry!)

Elias served with the 8th Kentucky Cavalry, Co C. He enrolled in Casey County, Kentucky on July 28, 1862 to serve for 12 months. He mustered into service on Sept. 8, 1862 at Russellville, Kentucky.

This battalion (second) was organized by Colonel Bristow and commanded by Major J.M. Kennedy. The second and third battalions were engaged in a number of skirmishes with the rebel Colonel Woodward, and, finally, by a night march under Major Kennedy, they came upon his forces at Camp Coleman, in Todd County, Ky., dispersing the whole force. Upon the invasion of Kentucky by Bragg, General Buell ordered the second and third battalions to join his command at Bowling Green, Ky. In conjunction with a part of the 4th Kentucky Cavalry, were assigned to the responsible duty of guarding General Buell’s immense wagon train across Green river. Upon returning to Bowling Green, two companies of the 8th Cavalry were sent upon a scout into Tennessee, where they surprised and captured a party of over one hundred rebel soldiers who were engaged in collecting supplies for Bragg’s army. During the winter and spring the first and second battalions were engaged in many skirmishes, and were assigned the duty of protecting the country west of the Nashville railroad. This regiment and a battalion of the 3rd Kentucky Cavalry, under command of Colonel Bristow, were in pursuit of John Hunt Morgan in his raid through Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio, and did good service in that long and fatiguing march, and were present at the taking of the notorious raider.

The regiment was mustered out of service at Russellville, Ky., September 23rd, 1863.

Elias was reported “present” on October 31, but contracted the measles in November. On the muster rolls for November and December, he was listed as “absent on detached duty in hospital”. A note in his file indicates that he was “left at the hospital in Russellville, Kentucky for 15 days on or about December 24, 1862. For January and February of 1863, he was present, but “sick”. Considering the fact that 117 men from the regiment died, and 109 of those were from disease, I think Elias was one of the lucky ones.

Elias honorably mustered out of service on Sept. 17, 1863 in Lebanon, Kentucky.

I wish this could be more eloquent and detailed! I plan to continue researching Elias’ military service and would love to hear suggestions and comments.

About 2 years ago, I was thrilled, but overwhelmed with the information available in a book I had ordered online. It was published by the local historical society and it contained an abstract of all of the church records available at the church founded by my husband’s ancestors in Kankakee County, Illinois. Before purchasing the book, I had found a list online of all of the voting members of the church in 1878 and I knew that several of his ancestors were members. What I never imagined with the wealth of information available on those ancestors in the church records! (Confession: My shyness has kept me from every going to a church to ask what type of records they keep!)

As I flipped through the 500+ page book, I could see that if I didn’t come up with a system quickly, I’d be losing out on valuable information. In addition, the book stated that the records of the early church were all written in German, so even if I had been able to get my hands on the actual records, I would not have been able to understand most of it. The book was a translation of the records, so it was a double bonus!

I set up an Excel file to begin entering information. I created a column for Record type (birth, marriage, death, baptism, confirmation, etc.) Year, Name of record subject, Father, Mother, Spouse, Page #, Witnesses and Comments. I created identical pages for each surname I was researching so that I could quickly click between surnames as I went through the book.

To begin, I used the index and began going through the book entering the information as I went. No single record contained ALL of the information, but I knew I’d be able to sort columns to decide which records belong to the same person. Looking at the information from all of the records for a person gave me much more information that a single record could.

After entering all of the information, I sorted the Name column (being careful to choose the ‘expand the sort’ option so that all rows stayed together) so that each individual would either end up grouped together or close together. This also helped me to see if there was more than 1 person with the same name to be aware of in other research, such as census records. (My images do not include all columns to make them easier to read.)

I could further sort these specific names by date to see if that revealed information to help differentiate people with the same name. Finding the death of 1 individual with continuing records after that date helped to sort men with the same name. Often, this simple sort gave me a lot of information that I wasn’t expecting including middle names, various spellings and multiple spouses.

I could also perform a sort of the names in the Father column. Based on this, I am able to write a sort of family group sheet. Often, I would find a child that I didn’t know about and I discovered that often, if a child died, the next child was given that same name in honor of them. That solved some puzzles I’d listed in my notes.

2 wives named Katherine

I can also do a custom sort forcing the program to list names in alphabetical order and each identical name in chronological order. This could give me an approximate timeline for when a spouse died and when a second marriage occurred. Another thing that this sort gave me was maiden names for spouses and multiple spouses.

I did a similar sort for the Mother column. When I sorted by female names, I discovered German names for husbands that I never would have known about otherwise. Why research Ehranreich Betz when my ancestor’s name was Alexander Betz? I can also manually move rows that match the individual I’m focusing on so that all of the information is together.

Alexander/Ehranreich Betz

Although this has nothing to do with Excel, I was also very pleased with some of the information I gleaned from the witness or comments section of the records. For example, I had a date of death and a tombstone for an ancestor only to discover through the comments section that this person had committed suicide and was not actually buried in the cemetery, but on a nearby farm. This explained why I had not been able to find a will and led me to search for the newspaper story about his death, which I never would have thought to look for if I had been content to know the date of death of “place of burial” only.

I also have the great joy of researching the surname “Smith” on my side as well as my husband’s side and I use these processes in Excel in the same way. The only difference is that I keep records from multiple books, microfilms and web sites citing the sources in a separate column. I love being able to manipulate the data like this and know that I won’t mess anything up – it all goes back to my original format as long as I don’t save the manipulated file when I’m finished!

Last summer, I was incredibly lucky to be able to travel to several countries in Europe along with my husband, who was on a business trip. For 1 day, my wonderful husband shuttled me wherever I wanted to go to see the area that I had spent so much time researching. We went to 2 small towns in Alsace, France named Vogelgrun and Volgelsheim. We were able to locate 2 cemeteries in the area that had burials for families from my husband’s line – Herrscher. It was an incredible feeling to know that I was standing in the same location as the people I had been researching! They were REAL!

The interesting tradition for European cemeteries is that families “rent” their space and renew the lease after a period of years. Family members are buried together in the same plot.

When our trip was over, my husband commented that he could finally understand why genealogy had captured my heart.

These are my great-grandparents – my grandfather’s parents. They spent most of their lives in Russell County, Kentucky, but moved to Franklin, Indiana around 1946. They are buried in the cemetery of First Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church in Franklin.